No long intros are going to be made here, this is just something that
we are very proud of having done. Follows the transcript of our communication
with guitarist Markus Siepen of Blind Guardian, one of Germany's leading
metal bands that has just released a new single called "And There Was
Silence". You wanna know more about it, as well as about the past, present
and future of the band? Read on…

MetalKings.com:
In the beginning I'd like to ask you some things about the past of the
band. How did you come up with the name Blind Guardian?

Markus:
Oh! (laughs) I mean, when we started recording demo tapes we had a different
name back then, we were called Lucifer's Heritage. We recorded two demos
under that name but a lot of people thought we were going black metal
because of the Lucifer in the name. So when we finally signed a record
deal we thought about the name and said, 'Well, we have to change it'
because we never played black metal and we didn't want people to connect
us with that kind of music. So we sat down in the studio and wrote just
all kinds of names on the sheet of paper and picked the one we liked most
and that was Blind Guardian. So there's no really special meaning behind
it, we just liked that name, we took it and I guess that was a good decision.

MetalKings.com:
I heard that the name was taken from a book by Stephen King. Is it true?

Markus:
No, no, that's not right. There're several rumors about that and this
is just one of them. (laughs)

MetalKings.com:
Another thing is that as far as I know you didn't play on those two demos.
How did you get involved in the band? I mean, who invited you?

Markus:
At that time I played in a different band and Lucifer's Heritage and my
band shared the same rehearsal room so when they had problems with the
guy who played guitar...

MetalKings.com:
Markus Dork, I guess.

Markus: Yes, he was one of the guys. There were actually two players before
me. Markus Dork played on the first demo and a guy called Christoff Theissen
played on the second one. When they also had problems with this guy they
asked me if I would like to do a couple of sessions with them and maybe
join the band. And since I liked their style of music and we knew each
other at that time for quite some time, so I knew we would get along so
I joined the band and the rest is history.

MetalKings.com: I also would like to know how you
got in touch with Kai Hansen.

Markus:
The guy who produced our first albums, Kalle Trapp, he is from Hamburg
so he knew Kai. And the contact was made by him because Kai just visited
us in the studio, he heard about the band so he visited Kalle and us,
was curious about us. So we played a couple of sessions and he recorded
a solo on "Follow The Blind" for the first time I guess (track "Hall Of
The King"). And that's how we met Kai and a good friendship developed
from that. I mean, Hansi sang on a couple of his albums and he played
on a couple of our albums, good friend.

MetalKings.com:
So do you know other guys from Helloween or Gamma Ray?

Markus:
We know all Helloween, we know all Gamma Ray. I mean, Gamma Ray we of
course knew from Kai and we've visited them in their studio, they visit
our studio and when we play in Hamburg. And we know the guys from Helloween
when we played a couple of festivals during the last tour together with
them.

MetalKings.com:
You know, I heard so many different opinions of German musicians about
the current work of Michael Kiske. What do you think of it?

Markus:
I have to say I did not hear it so I can't tell you anything about it.
I know that he released two solo albums but I don't know a single one
of them. I guess he's about to release the third one but I don't know
a single song of his albums. So I can't say anything about it, sorry.

MetalKings.com:
OK, no problem. So you recorded two demo tapes before Blind Guardian.
Did you play anything from them during the first tours?

Markus:
Yes, "Battalions Of Fear", the title track of the second demo, the song
"Trian By The Archon" from the second one and the song "Wizard's Crown"
was also on the second demo tape. And from time to time when we're in
the mood we play a song called "Brain" live from the first demo tape but
we didn't release it and we didn't record it for an album. But a lot of
people are asking for old stuff at the moment, from those demo tapes and
we said, 'If we might do another "Forgotten Tales" album sometime in the
future we might do them' but there's nothing planned like that at the
moment. But if we might do another one we might re-record a couple of
those songs but it's not planned at the moment.

MetalKings.com:
So is it possible that you re-release those demo tapes one day?

Markus:
They have been available through our fan-club but I don't know if they
have any left at the moment. But they have been available for quite some
time.

MetalKings.com:
Let's talk about the current days of the band. As far as I know you're
pretty close to releasing a new album. Well, I heard that the song "Harvest
Of Sorrow" was originally done for "Nightfall In Middle Earth"...

Markus: Yes, I wrote that song back in 1998 but it
didn't really fit on the "Nightfall" album so we originally planned to
release another EP after "Nightfall..." with "Harvest Of Sorrow" and two
other tracks to finish the lyrical concept of the album. But unfortunately
we had to cancel those plans for the EP because Hansi had some bad hearing
problems. It was exactly at the time we planned to record this in order
to finish the recording. So we had to cancel this, and now we release
"Harvest Of Sorrow" as one of two songs on the new single...

MetalKings.com: Yeah, about
the single. It's quite strange that you decided to release a 14-minute
track as the first single from the new album. And as far as I know no
band has done that before. Didn't you think about releasing an edited
version?

Markus: OK, there are two reasons for that. First
of all, we really liked that song, and we thought that it would be pretty
unique to do something like that because no band ever thought about releasing
a 14-minute number as a single track. And we also didn't release an album
for quite some time, we released "Nightfall" in 1998 and the new album
will be released in May next year. So... oh sorry, not May, it will be
in March. (laughs) So we thought it would be a cool thing to present really
a lot of material to the fans. And with thing single, with two songs,
they get 20 minutes of new music for them. So that's our way of saying
to our fans, "Thank you very much for waiting so long for the new album."'

MetalKings.com: Well, and Hansi
Kursch will not play bass on the new album, right?

Markus: Yes, that's true. He didn't play bass, it's
the same thing like on the last one. Oliver Holzwarth will play bass,
he's a friend of ours. He used to play in the band called Sieges Even
but they split up last year or two years ago so he now plays in Paradox.
And he's a friend of ours, he's a really great bass player, he again recorded
the bass tracks for the album. He will probably play with us on tour,
or Hansi might play bass again - we don't know that at the moment. OK,
we'll see.

MetalKings.com: Yeah, right.
But why did Hansi decide not to play bass?

Markus: Well, first of all, concerning the last tour,
Hansi wanted to try it because it's really hard for him to sing vocal
stuff and play bass at the same time. Because to focus on the vocals is
a hard job and playig bass at the same time makes it even harder. So he
said, 'I want to try and give my bass to somebody else.' And concerning
the album, it's basically the same. I mean, it's really a lot of work
to write for his vocal stuff and also record it, so he just wanted to
focus on the vocals because that's more important for him, of course.
And we said, 'OK, let's leave the bass to somebody else so there won't
be any problems.'

MetalKings.com: The song "And
Then There Was Silence" seems to be based on the Trojan War story. So
will the whole album be based on it or just this particular song only?

Markus: This song and another one from the album are
based on the Trojan War. But the rest is on different topics. I mean,
there's one song about Jesus Christ, one song about Mitchell, there's
a song about fantasy stories, and "Harvest Of Sorrow" is the only one
still based on Tolkien because it was written like I said before, originally
it was written for "Nightfall", so there're different topics and it's
definitely no concept album like the last one.

MetalKings.com: "Harvest Of
Sorrow" is a love song, which is quite unusual for a German heavy metal
band. What do you think is the main reason for it?

Markus: To be honest I don't really know. As far as
I remember our lyrics it's the first love song we ever did. And I mean,
this one was based on the lyrical concept, well, the whole stuff was about
"The Simarillion" by Tolkien and that's just one his chapters. It deals
with a tragic love story, so it obviously became a love song. Well, it
wasn't planned, we didn't sit down and said, 'We've got to have a love
song on the next album' and as far I remember there won't be any other
love songs on the album now... that wasn't planned actually. I mean, I
think, many heavy metal bands don't like love songs because they wanna
be hard, heavy and tough guys, maybe that's why they don't sing about
love stories, I don't know.

MetalKings.com: OK. You know,
I think that many German metal bands are quite different from American
bands or those from other countries because their music, I guess, is based
on classical melodies. What's your opinion?

Markus: That might be true. Obviously from the States
there are mostly nu metal bands like Linkin Park, Papa Roach and Limp
Bizkit and whatever... And that's the big trend in the States at the moment
and I think a lot of German bands don't follow this trend that comes from
the States because there are obviously bands like us, like Helloween,
Gamma Ray, Kreator or whatever who are doing their thing throughout their
whole career and they don't look what's big in the States at the moment
and they do not follow these trends. I think that's a pretty good thing
that you don't try to copy other stuff that maybe more successful than
what you do, and you just stay true to what you believe and play the music
you really like. And that's a pretty good thing, I guess.

MetalKings.com: Right. Well,
who will produce the new album?

Markus: Charlie Bauerfeind. He's the guy who already
worked with us on "Nightfall", he was one of the engineers on the album
and he already produced the "Mirror Mirror" single. So he's gonna produce
the whole stuff right now.

MetalKings.com: As far as I
understand this time Piet Sielck from Iron Savior is not involved in the
production...

Markus: No, he isn't.

MetalKings.com: And why?

Markus: I guess that's just the question of timing.
As far as I know he's pretty busy with Iron Savior, they are already in
the studio writing songs for the new album so they wouldn't be any free
time. I mean, the whole production for the new album started about 13
(!) months ago so if he would have been involved in this production they
wouldn't be any time left for Iron Savior, it doesn't make any sense.
If he works for us he has to focus on the things he does for us and I
guess he's busy enough doing his own thing so there's no Piet anymore.

MetalKings.com: I've heard that
you were going to participate in the soundtrack to the "Lord Of The Rings"
movie...

Markus: No, that's unfortunately not true. I mean,
there have been so many rumors about it. The fact is that when everybody
heard that there will be another film about the "Lord Of The Rings", the
first real movie about it, there have been tons of fans on the Internet
having voting about who should be writing the soundtrack. And we won a
lot of those votings. So we got in contact to the guys producing the film
but in the end they went to one of the big and well-known soundtrack composers,
and they didn't take us. So a lot of people keep asking us, 'Are you doing
the soundtrack? Are you gonna be involved?' And our answer is, 'No, we
are not.' I mean we really wanted to do it, but it didn't happen.

MetalKings.com: Well, as far
as I know for several past years you were thinking about doing your own
album based on "Lord Of The Rings". So is it true?

Markus: That is true. We have written a couple of
songs which are totally untypical for us, it's no metal music, it's more
or less based on classical stuff and lyricalwise it's totally based on
"Lord Of The Rings". The music would perfectly fit for the movie but we
didn't write it for the movie on purpose, we wrote those songs even before
we knew that there would be another movie. And if we finish that project
one time it's definitely gonna be released but we can't say if it would
be the next album or the one after the next, it's just our kind of side
project, it's a long-term one but we are working on those songs besides
the usual recordings of Blind Guardian stuff. And it's definitely gonna
be released one day whenever that is. (laughs)

MetalKings.com: I see that all
of you are big fans of fantasy stuff like Tolkien, etc. What are your
favorite writers apart from him?

Markus: Oh, there are tons of writers. I mean, I really
like Michael Murcock...

MetalKings.com: "Eternal Hero",
I guess...

Markus: Yes, all of his stuff, and I like Benjamin
Forster (not sure about the spelling - ed.), his stuff is great. And at
the moment I'm reading a lot of books of David Eddings who also did a
lot of great fantasy stories. I mean it's our kind of stuff, Hansi and
me are reading really a lot so we're trying everything. (laughs)

MetalKings.com: Let's talk about
inspirations... What bands inspired you to create such an original style?

Markus: There are many bands. Queen is definitely
one of the biggest influences concerning all those choir arrangements
and all those harmony stuff and other music elements but there are also
bands for example like Jethro Tull that were big influence on us, those
folkloristic influences, for example. So there are different bands. I
mean, when we started back in the late 1980s obviously bands like Iron
Maiden and Metallica maybe... When we were doing "Follow The Blind" we
were listening to a lot of thrash metal bands like Testament or Forbidden
and maybe that's why "Follow The Blind" was a little bit heavier (laughs),
but definitely today it's bands like Queen or Queensryche...

MetalKings.com: More progressive
music, I guess...

Markus: Yes.

MetalKings.com: You also covered
a song by Satan ("Trial By Fire"), it was on the "Somewhere Far Beyond"
album...

Markus: Yes, this band haven't really been an influence
on us but during all the time we've been covering songs we really liked
and it was just one of them. For example, we did the Demon cover of "Don't
Break The Circle" on the "Follow The Blind" album. I mean, Demon was always
one of our favorite bands, we also did stuff from Deep Purple, we did
a Queen cover. So Satan definitely wasn't an influence on us but we really
liked the band, and we really loved that song. That's why we said, 'OK,
let's cover it'. That was cool, I mean, we have been on tour in 1995 together
with Skyclad. So the guys from Skyclad originally were in Satan and we
played it live together with them on one show, it was fun.

MetalKings.com: You see, Hansi
has a side project with Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth, I mean, Demons & Wizards.
So have you ever thought about your own side project?

Markus: I might do something in the future but it's
definitely not planned at the moment. If I might write songs that wouldn't
fit the Blind Guardian stuff, for example, I might release them as a side
project but there's nothing of it planned at the moment. So that Demons
& Wizards idea they had from 1991 when we played with Iced Earth for the
first time. I mean, we're really good friends with Iced Earth, and Jon
and Hansi always wanted to write songs together. They talked about it
for years and one day they just started writing stuff. So Demons & Wizards
was the result of it but, like I said, at the moment as least I don't
plan anything. We're just focusing on finishing the new album and we'll
be on tour for the whole next year, so in the moment there isn't any time
for anything (laughs), no room for any side projects.

MetalKings.com: Another thing
about covers... The song "Mr. Sandman" originally came from the 1950s
or 1960s I guess...

Markus: 1950s I guess (laughs) We all knew that song
and we sometimes like covering that kind of stuff. Like we also did with
Beach Boys stuff, it's just fun to play songs that are really different
to the stuff we normally play. I mean, when we cover songs from Satan
or from Demon it's basically metal songs played by metal bands so it's
fun to play this totally different stuff.

MetalKings.com:
Yeah, for example, the Beach Boys song was completely unfitting to your
style...

Markus:
Well, but it was totally fun. This happened by accident to be honest.
I mean, after finishing one of the rehearsals for "Follow The Blind" we
started jamming on this guitar riff and Hansi started singing those vocals,
we played the song for about half an hour (laughs) and thought, 'Hey,
we gotta record it!' And Kalle, he loved the idea also and we said, 'Okey,
let's give it a try, record it and see what happens' and we played it
live for a thousand times and everybody is totally going nuts on that
song, so it's great, it's fun to play something totally different.

MetalKings.com:
Yeah, you know, it's like with Gamma Ray who played a cover-version of
Pet Shop Boys. It was also quite strange...

Markus:
Yeah, that's cool. I mean, sometimes it's really great to play something
that hasn't any connection to metal. Obviously when a metal band plays
another metal song it's nothing really special. I mean, it's fun to play
your favorite songs but it's also fun to do anything that hasn't anything
to do with your normal style like Beach Boys stuff or Mike Oldfield stuff
or whatever we did. It's fun...

MetalKings.com:
Well, another thing concerning the history of German metal is that in
the early 1990s there was a thing called German Rock Project. Do you know
about it?

Markus:
I don't know anything about it. What is that supposed to be?

MetalKings.com:
Well, many German bands like Gamma Ray, Pink Cream 69, Casanova, etc.
gathered together to record a song called "Let Love Conquer The World".
Did you get any invitations to participate in it?

Markus:
To be honest I'm hearing it for the first time at the moment. (laughs)
Nobody invited us and no, I didn't know anything about it. (laughs)

MetalKings.com:
OK. Another thing about the new album is will there be any special guests?

Markus:
Besides Oliver who played the bass, no. There's no Kai or anybody. We
always have guest musicians on the album for the choirs, for example,
but they are the same guys that sang on other albums we ever did. So there's
nothing special, we just got Oliver playing the bass, we got one of the
guys who is with us on tour playing the keyboards and that's it.

MetalKings.com:
You know, there's not too many video information about Blind Guardian
out there. Do you have plans to release a live video or a video history
of the band?

Markus: At the moment we did just video clips, I guess. We did three videos
for the "Imaginations" album, we did the video for "Mr. Sandman", one
for "Born In The Mourning Hall" and one for "Bright Eyes" and for the
last album we did the clip for "Mirror Mirror". There will also be a video
clip for the new album but we don't know for which song at the moment,
we're still talking about that but it will definitely happen. And I'm
pretty sure we will release a live video, I don't know if it will be on
this tour or the next one or whenever but one day there will be a live
video or DVD or whatever. At present there are no plans for it but we
are talking about another live album, maybe for the next tour. We're still
talking about it, if we might record a couple of shows... We will probably
also film them, we'll see. It's too early to tell about it at the moment.

MetalKings.com:
Oh, about the live album. I think your "Tokyo Tales" was one of the best
German metal live albums ever, very strong, powerful and bombastic...

Markus:
Thank you very much. (laughs) You know, a lot of fans are asking about
the new album so that's why we're talking about maybe doing another one.
So if we do it we might film a couple of shows, maybe there's gonna be
the whole package next time.

MetalKings.com:
Well, the recent trend in the music world is to release several versions
of albums. I mean, one with a bonus track, another in a digipack or boxed
version. So do you have any bonus tracks for the new album?

Markus:
Not really. I think those bonus tracks are OK if you release them on the
first version. That's okay if you do it like this but it's just a fan
rip-off when you just release and album and re-release it two months later
with two new songs and maybe another version as a box set. It's just a
rip-off because obviously the die-hard fans will buy every version to
have all tracks. I mean, there are several versions of our albums with
bonus tracks in South and North America. But they were released later,
for example, "Nightfall" was released in South America one year after
it was published worldwide. And "Imaginations" and "Somewhere Far Beyond"
were released there years after they were released in the rest of the
world so they put a couple of tracks from "Forgotten Tales", for example.
In fact, we are not big fans of special editions, like I said before,
it's okay if you do it as the first version, so it's 'buy it now with
bonus tracks' or 'buy a regular version later'.

MetalKings.com:
At the same time Japanese editions always have traditional bonus tracks,
I guess...

Markus:
The problem is that CDs in Japan are very expensive...

MetalKings.com:
...about 30 dollars, I guess...

Markus: Yeah, and sometimes even higher. And the imported albums are cheaper
than the official Japanese releases. People in Japanese record companies
are really afraid that the Japanese fans can buy imported versions instead
of official Japanese ones and that's why they ask for bonus tracks or
special editions or whatever. Some bands are doing special bonus tracks
for the Japanese market but at the moment I can say that there won't be
any special bonus tracks on our new album in Japan.

MetalKings.com:
Does it mean that you have no outtakes from the album?

Markus: No, there are some, but most of the songs we did during the "Nightfall"
sessions and they are not released yet. Maybe we will release them on
singles but there are no plans at the moment. Besides the album will be
very long, it's about 70 minutes of music so there's no really need for
another bonus track. (laughs)

MetalKings.com:
I have always wanted to ask German musicians about their opinion on guitar
heroes like Yngwie Malmsteen. So what do you think of him?

Markus:
During the previous tour we played together with Skyclad, we were headlininig,
the whole thing was called Christmas Metal Meetings, and other bands were
touring with us, and Yngwie Malmsteen was one of them. I must say he's
a very nice guy, a great guitar hero but I do not prefer guitar heroes,
I like normal songs and not just guitar solos. Though Yngwie has great
songs, he has always had great vocalists, his 'normal' songs are good
but his soloing stuff is too much for me. I prefer easier songs.

MetalKings.com:
As far as I know the "Tokyo Tales" album was recorded in Tokyo and you
did two shows. One of them was released and from the second one you took
"Lord Of The Rings" as a bonus track. Is it true?

Markus:
Yes it is.

MetalKings.com:
So why wasn't the song released on a regular version?

Markus:
Yes, we recorded two shows from Tokyo, then checked the tapes and thought
that we played better on one of them. I mean, that was the best day recordingwise
that's why we took all those songs aside and only "Lord Of The Rings"
was used from that show. The "Lord Of The Rings" version we did on the
other day was pretty cool so we said, 'Well, let's take it as a bonus
track or whatever and keep the other show'.

MetalKings.com:
Markus, may I ask some personal questions?

Markus:
Go ahead!

MetalKings.com:
It was a very popular rock'n'roll topic in the 1980s, I mean, the grouppies.
Do they exist on the German music scene? You know, there's almost no information
about it.

Markus:
Yes, they exist. I guess, they exist not only in Germany, they exist all
over the world but I don't know what they were like in the middle or in
early 1980s. They really exist but not that many as lots of people think...

MetalKings.com:
... it was I guess the motto of the 1980s like 'sex, drugs, rock'n'roll'...

Markus:
Yeah, that's true.

MetalKings.com:
...but as far as I know it's not typical for the German scene...

Markus:
That's like I said before, I guess it's not typical for any country's
scene. That's the typical rock'n'roll cliche, that 'sex, drugs, rock'n'roll'
or whatever. I mean, we don't have anything to do with the grouppies,
nobody in the band uses any drugs, maybe a glass of red wine before the
show. I think we couldn't stand the tour if we'd be partying all day.
I mean, if we do this for a couple of days afterwards we won't be able
to play another show. So life can be tough on the road, I guess. You have
to be very civilized to stand it. I mean, the last tour we did, well,
for "Nightfall", we were on the road for almost eight months and you can't
stand it for such a long time if we try to party and have fun all day.

MetalKings.com:
Another personal question is are you all in the band married or have children?

Markus:
Three of us are married, so Hansi, me and Thomen are married. Hansi and
I have kids. So, I have a son which will be six years old by the end of
the year and Hansi's son was born about two or three months ago.

MetalKings.com:
Does the life of a musician with recordings and tours affect your families?

Markus:
I mean, when you're away from home for a long time that's difficult, of
course. The good thing is we don't have extensive tours, we're not on
the road for such a long time. So usually we start the tour with one block
for three to four weeks and then will be home for a couple of days, head
for Spain for another week, come home for another week and then go to
wherever... But there's always a kind of short period when we're away,
we come back for a week or two and we're not apart from our families for
at least that long time. Especially for the kids it's very hard, so it's
a kind of job.

MetalKings.com:
You know, a very important thing about Blind Guardian is that since first
days of the band you have stayed together and had no line-up changes.
Do you really have no conflicts or clashes within the band?

Markus:
Of course, we have a lot of conflicts like any other band but we try to
solve them by talking about them instead of firing just one guy. If you
can't solve problems by talking you have a big problem anyway. You can
fire someone, take another guy into the band and have the same problem
with him a week later. So it doesn't make sense to change line-ups all
day. I mean, we know each other for so many years so we can work together,
we're very good friends so there's no reason to change the line-up.

MetalKings.com:
And the guys who played on demos, are they still in music business?

Markus:
Yes, they are. Markus Dork is still playing, he's a good friend of Andre,
so they're in pretty close contact. He has his own band but as far as
I know it's no metal band, they're a kind of Marillion stuff. And the
other guy Christof, he's still playing in a metal band. They're all from
Kreffeld and they are called Metal Kids. So they're also doing a kind
of melodic speed metal I think.

MetalKings.com:
So thanks a lot Markus for this interview, it was really great, like a
dream come true for me, really!

Markus:
You're welcome any time.

MetalKings.com:
And I hope we will see you in Russia some other time...

Markus:
There are talks about that at the moment. There's nothing confirmed yet
but we might play two shows in Russia. So as soon as we got those dates
confirmed we'll publish them on our homepage or wherever so it might happen
this time.

MetalKings.com:
So until next time!

Markus:
Keep in contact with us. Thank you.

-- Dead Ripper
MetalKings.com

***The authors
would like to express their gratitude to Olga Karpovich & Gala Records
for the assistance in organizing this interview.